


the future is bright. wear shades

by Tenillypo



Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Constipation, F/M, Post-Movie(s), Reluctant happiness, Road Trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-13 21:46:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4538553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tenillypo/pseuds/Tenillypo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What do you say, Ms. Kyle? You want to see the world?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	the future is bright. wear shades

There’s an empty casket in the garden behind Wayne manor. Selina gives it a wide berth when she stops by the mansion on her way out of town. Wherever Bruce Wayne’s spirit resides, it’s not here.

Taking the pearls again feels like memorial enough. She thinks he would understand.

*

But two weeks later, she turns a corner in Paris and there’s a ghost waiting in front of her hotel, pale and bruised but most definitely alive. The sudden sense of déjà vu is overwhelming, and she has to pause to catch her breath before speaking.

“This is getting to be a habit with you,” she says finally, pleased that her voice doesn’t shake at all.

Bruce just smiles mildly, as if they’re casual acquaintances who’ve run into each other at the supermarket. “Are you complaining?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Well, you do look pretty good for a dead man.”

“And you look pretty good for a woman who doesn’t exist.” His voice is still easy, but the clench of his jaw says he’s less confident of his reception than he’d like her to believe.

She takes a step closer. “Which begs the question, Mr. Wayne -- and don’t get me wrong, I _am_ glad to see you -- but how did you find me?”

Up close, she can see the faded remnants of a bruise on his temple, a tiny cut still healing on his lip. If he’d betrayed her after all, if the clean slate didn’t work and all her new-found freedom was an illusion--

But he only nods at the necklace around her neck. “You have something of mine. Makes you easy to find.”

Of course. She feels at once both relieved and annoyed at her relief. It makes her next words sharper than she intends. “What if a kitten gets stuck in a tree in Gotham while you’re off chasing musty old pearls around the world?”

He chuckles ruefully. “Someone else can handle the kitten rescuing for a change. I thought I’d do some traveling, maybe figure out a way to save the world without punching people.” A pause, another nervous clench of his jaw. “And I thought some company might be nice.”

Her pulse is jumping the same way it does right before a big heist. She hums lightly, tapping a finger against the pearls. “Oh, you did.”

“I very much did.” He extends a hand, palm up. “What do you say, Ms. Kyle? You want to see the world?”

That’s how it begins.

*

Yesterday, she thought he was dead and now she has him pressed up against the door of her hotel room. Six months ago, she gave him up to save her own life. Three weeks ago, she gave up a clean escape to fight by his side. He makes her crazy. She wants to eat him alive.

Bruce walks her backward on unsteady legs, pulling her shirt up as he goes. They’re both clumsy with need, but she prefers it that way. Something about his stumbling urgency makes him seem less like a mirage and more like a real man.

They land on the bed together in a mess of limbs. Bruce is a solid, comforting weight on top of her until she flips them, grunting but letting her hold his wrists above his head while she ducks down to kiss him. They’ve kissed before -- once in distraction, once as farewell -- but this is completely different. This is Bruce kissing with intent. She tries not to think how she could get used to it.

The sex is rough and desperate and over very quickly. After, he’s still and relaxed beside her, face more peaceful than she ever remembers seeing it before. She props herself on one elbow, taking the opportunity to study him. His torso is riddled with old scars and newer fading, yellow bruises. There’s a large bandage on his flank. She traces the edges lightly.

“Little present from Miranda,” he says, answering the question she didn't ask. Then grimaces: “Or Talia, I suppose.” 

She presses her thumb against it hard enough to make him hiss. “Wonderful taste in women you have there.”

“Flew halfway around the world to find you, didn’t I?” He’s smiling as he says it, but she still feels an unwelcome stab of guilt.

“She’s not the only one who left you for dead, you know.” It’s as close as she’ll get to an apology. 

Bruce looks at her for a long moment. “But you’re the one who came back,” he says finally, reaching over to brush her hair away from her face. “You’re the one who saved me.”

The tenderness of the gesture somehow feels more intimate than anything they just did. She sits up, rolling her eyes to cover how out of her depth she is. “You’re too trusting, Wayne. It’s amazing you’ve lived this long.”

Bruce just closes his eyes, completely vulnerable before her. She clenches her fists in frustration. Despite all her best intentions, it weighs on her, this debt she owes him. Twice now he's died and left it unpaid. Twice he's come back, and now she doesn't know which of them is keeping score. He’s like no one she’s ever met, with his ridiculous code. Quick to forgive the unforgivable, unwilling to kill even those who would kill him without a second thought. 

She doesn’t understand him at all.

*

Bruce has a yacht. Of course he does.

“Forgot to add this one to the will, I guess?” Selina says as they stand on the dock.

“I may not have been completely honest about the extent of my holdings on the official record,” he admits, scratching at his chin. He’s growing a beard. It has no right to look as good on him as it does. “It seemed prudent to hold back a small portion.”

“A small portion,” she echoes. She doesn’t know much about yachts, but she knows expensive when she sees it.

“Too much?” he says, watching her. “Hey, if you don’t like it, I can take it back--”

She tuts softly, laying a hand on his arm. “Let’s not be hasty.” She shouldn’t find his false humility charming. “I suppose you think you’re the captain.”

His mouth quirks. “Is sailing on the considerable list of your accomplishments, Ms. Kyle?”

“Kane,” she corrects absently. “It’s Kane now.” The boat is sleek and powerful, all elegant curves and sinuous lines. On the other side of the railing, the horizon stretches out with no end. She smiles, slowly. “And no. But I can learn.”

*

Selina has never left Gotham before. Bruce has been all over the world, but it turns out a surprising amount of those travels involved backwater prisons, clandestine kidnappings, and honest-to-god ninja training. So they learn how to be tourists together.

It’s surprisingly good. It’s _nice_.

Too nice, almost. She keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, for her passport to be flagged or someone to recognize the former Most Eligible Bachelor whose pet energy project caused the greatest act of terrorism the world has ever seen. But no one gives either of them a second glance. People only see what they want to see, she knows. What they expect. 

“Bruce Wayne was as much of a mask as Batman,” Bruce agrees, magnificently unconcerned as he saunters down a crowded sidewalk in Barcelona. He’s wearing a scruffy three week beard, unassuming jeans, and the Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt she made him buy as punishment for losing last night’s poker game. “Take away the attitude and the costume and no one knows who he is.”

And it's true. Bruce Wayne, eccentric billionaire, never met a spectacle he didn’t like. But Bruce Wayne, retired vigilante, moves through the world with a quiet confidence, drawing little attention to himself. There’s a lightness to him here, drifting through the Mediterranean, that she doesn’t think could have survived in Gotham. 

“So who’s under the mask, Mr. Wayne?”

She means for it to be a teasing question, but he pauses with such a serious expression that she momentarily regrets saying anything at all. “You know, I’m not exactly sure.” Then he shakes his head, laughing softly. “I guess we’ll find out.”

*

She’s never been with anyone else long enough to learn all the quirks of their body. She watches Bruce’s bruises fade, helps him put clean bandages on his wound, sees him wince and swear under his breath as he puts on his leg brace in the mornings, memorizes the little sounds he makes when he’s about to come.

She knows that he likes his coffee black with two sugars and prefers his eggs poached. The kind of books he reads, and the jokes that make him laugh. The toothpaste he uses, the songs he hums in the shower. The way he’s absolutely useless in the morning but gets a second wind around 3 am.

She thinks this knowledge must be a trap. She’s just not sure for which one of them.

*

Bruce has plans to keep him busy -- investing his remaining funds, a new foundation with an anonymous donor -- but he still watches the news and monitors the local police frequencies when he thinks Selina doesn't notice. And she still cases the homes of people with too much money and not enough sense, just to keep her skills sharp. (He pretends he doesn't notice.)

But she has legitimate interests of her own now, sometimes taking off for days at a time. Selena Kane, legitimate security consultant, is making a name for herself in the right circles. She’s networking at a conference in Frankfurt when the first reports surface: there’s a mysterious new vigilante in Gotham who seems to have taken up the Batman's mantle. Selena has her suspicions, but keeps them to herself.

When she gets back, Bruce doesn’t say a word about it. He’s been welding again, one of a number of unusual hobbies picked up over his years as a vigilante and hermit. Selina long ago reached a phase in her professional career that required a certain amount of hand-crafted gear. She can respect that throwing stars in the shape of bats do not actually grow on trees, and usually leaves him to his own devices when he feels the urge to keep his more exotic skills sharp.

This time, though, the timing is suspicious. She watches him carefully for days after, waiting for some sign he’s about to bolt back to the city that nearly swallowed him whole. But he doesn’t so much as twitch whenever news of the latest exploits comes across the wire. 

"No regrets about giving up the keys to the kingdom?" she says casually one night when she can’t take the tension anymore. They’re off the coast of Marseille. There’s an empty bottle of wine sitting between them and the BBC website is showing grainy footage of a dark figure jumping across a rooftop. 

He doesn’t look up from his book. “A wise man once told me I need to find another way to live. Another reason.”

She searches his face, but there’s no sign of dissembling. “And have you?” 

His hands still for a moment, then one drops down to the couch to rest lightly next to hers. When he finally looks up at her, he’s smiling. “What would you say about a trip to Florence? There’s a cafe I’ve been meaning to try.”

*

There’s an account in Gotham in Jen’s name. Selina wires funds to it regularly, a little at a time. She knows Jen well enough to know that giving her too much at once will only get her into trouble. But at least this way she knows she’ll never be desperate.

Selina finds she likes not feeling desperate.

*

Five months in, she wakes up alone in the early hours of the morning. They’re docked outside Athens. Even this far removed from the long winter in Gotham, the dry heat of the Mediterranean still feels like a luxury, and she stretches, enjoying the opulence of falling asleep in the nude and waking up still languid and comfortable. 

Bruce’s side of the bed is cool. The button down he’d worn the night before is on the floor by the side of the bed. Selena slips it on and wanders up on deck to find him sitting with his bad leg propped on the railing and a glass of scotch in hand. The air is quiet over the water, even the sounds of the nearby city muffled under the early morning haze. Her hair is shorter now, and the light breeze feels sweet against the back of her neck. 

Wordlessly, she takes the glass and swigs the remains before he can protest. Then she pulls a chair over and carefully lifts his leg into her lap, massaging at the aching muscles and joints with practiced hands.

“There’s a man in London.”

He’s shaking his head before she’s even finished speaking. “No.”

They don’t talk about this normally. As if acknowledging the fact that his body is broken will somehow keep it from being true. 

“He comes highly recommended,” she continues as if he hadn’t said anything.

“Not worth the risk.”

She hits a particularly sore area and he gasps. The brace he wears during the day allows him to move without a limp, but leaves him stiff afterward. “If he recognizes you, I’ll just kill him,” she says lightly.

“Selina--”

“You can’t just give up without even trying.” She’s angry, she realizes. She’s been angry her whole life, really. But this is the first time in a long time it’s been on someone else's behalf.

He sighs. “I’ve already been to see someone. I didn’t tell you because there wasn't any point. The news isn’t good.”

Her fingers still. “How not good?”

A muscle in his jaw clenches, although his voice is light. “They can give me meds for the pain, but it turns out spending several months hanging from a noose in a dark hole is not actually the preferred treatment for a broken back." A pause. "Using the brace less may help ease the stress.”

She breathes in, reminds herself all the ways it could have been worse. “All right,” she says after a moment, and pours another two fingers into the abandoned glass. “I can work with that.”

The next day, she comes home with a cane. Solid mahogany with a concealed blade.

“Just in case,” she says, arch, when he raises an eyebrow. But he takes the cane and takes the meds, and if she sometimes leaves printouts describing new experimental therapies lying on his desk, he doesn’t complain.

*

“I don’t know if I’ll be any good at this,” she confesses one night. Somehow, it’s easier to say in the dark.

She feels him shift beside her. “What?”

“This--everything.” She gestures vaguely. Him, going straight, being free.

Bruce doesn’t rush to reassure her. She appreciates that about him. When he finally speaks, his voice is contemplative. “I don’t know if I’ll be any good at being happy. Never really tried before.”

She gropes for his hand in the dark. It’s enough.

End.


End file.
